Posted on 11/07/2008 5:50:37 AM PST by Red in Blue PA
And if not, why not?
You cannot have a law which says that people adding to their accounts have money which is theirs and THEN pass a law which confiscates this money.
From everything I learned in school that would qualify as an ex post facto law. Where am I going wrong?
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That’s what I was alluding to post #4. They take as much of the benefits out of peoples nest egg as they can. This will cause the (propaganda arm) press to spout nightmare stories scaring people and swaying public opinion about retirement accounts. While they are doing that, they’ll be stacking the judiciary with liberal judges. Laws are irrelevant to liberal judges and the legality becomes a moot point.
Oops. Never mind.
You can pull all your money out of the 401K today.....so to that extent it is your money. You do have to pay tax and penalties, but it is still your decision as to pull it out or not.
* By definition, it can't be an ex post facto law. It'll simply be policy implemented retroactively, like the Clinton tax hikes. It's a subtle, but important distinction and therefore neatly sidesteps all of that constitutional mumbo jumbo.
* You assume they've read the Constitution, and understand what Article 1, Section 9 says. Case in point, our illustrious VP-elect doesn't know which article of the Constitution defines the executive. You'd think he would have started at the beginning, and read Article 1 to get to Article 2. Since he's unfamiliar with article 2, it's not that much of a leap to believe that he never actually got as far as Article 1, section 9.
* On a related point, you wouldn't expect our President elect or VP elect to be bound by article 1 section 9 anyway. It's about limits on Congress. Never affected them- they were Senators.
* It depends on what your definition of “No” is. There's certainly significant room for doubt of the intent and room for interpretation of lengthy sections of legalese such as “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.”
* Words like “ex post facto” are big words, difficult for our friends on the left to understand. Heck they don't even sound like English, not that English is officially our language or anything like that. Besides, Latin isn't one of the approved alternate languages, so any inconvenient phrases can simply be ignored.
* You assume that they actually care about Constitutionality in sense of constructionism in the first place. With Obama appointing the next Justices to the court, you're going to see the Constitution become a “living” document in ways that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. There are going to be penumbras and radical interpretations squirting out from all sorts of odd places in the document. From this point on, the Constitution means what they say it means.
* And finally, you simply don't understand how selfish you are being in the assumption that that money was yours in the first place. In this new political age, it is your duty to spread the wealth around, and if you won't do it on your own, our new Social Democrat overlords will be more than happy to remove that burden from you.
Happy to be here to help you understand the folly of your position in this new political age. Time for another shot of Victory Gin.
Employers will discontinue 401k matches and employees will see their income taxes rise because it will be figured into their ordinary income.
In such a scenario, employers might discontinue 401K matches, but I seriously doubt that employees would see their incomes rise, and if they do, it would not be an equivalent amount since the match has tax advantages for the employer while the wages would not.
If they were smart, then they would make 401k contributions MANDITORY. Keeping the management companies in business. They may do away with the tax deductability of the match - political suicide, but none the less. Some type of benefit would have to be put into place for matches. That way every worker is contributing to his or her retirement account and it is being managed by someone other than the govt.
why would they give you a tax credit? if a 401k is pre-tax, couldn’t they get away with giving you a social security credit? on paper it would appear to solve teh social security “crisis,” as well as to appear to be not taking away anything.
although it would only be a temporary “fix” dems could talk it up as having been solved, and later be able to find a way to blame the renewed crisis on republicans when they retake control.
The money IS yours; the tax is postponed to encourage you to save it. You can withdraw it at any time if you’re willing to pay the tax and penalties for breaking a contract.
When Congress starts actively considering confiscatory legislation, you’ll see people yanking their money out in a hurry.
No telling what Lbama®might or might not do .. but that wasn't what I took issue with.
You stated the FDR had added judges to the court .. was that before or after he went on TV to explain the 1929 market crash.
My problem is with folks spouting hsitry that isn't history.
ps - If you missed the refernece to FDR and TV, PM me and I'll explain that to you too.
"The sucking sound you hear from the stock market is the people closing out their 401k’s (whats left of them) and taking a 15% tax instead of who knows what."Sounds like the corrupt money changers. How do we turn over their tables?
I thought the trust structure was to prevent an unscrupulous employer from accessing the money.
Why can plan participants take a lump sum distribution (minus substantial taxes and penalties) any time
before age 59 ½ if it's not their money?
I think the poster of this thread raises a good question.
I also wonder why no elected republican has stepped forward to explain exactly why
this "confiscation" can't legally happen.
“My problem is with folks spouting hsitry that isn’t history.
ps - If you missed the refernece to FDR and TV, PM me and I’ll explain that to you too. “
While your point is made about FDR, your time may be better spent using a spell checker. And unlike Biden, I get it.
The simplest way for them to get a large chunk of it fast would be to end the Tax exempt status then you would be required to pay income taxes on your entire amount in 1 year since it would magically appear in your income for the year that the tax exempt status ended.
Unless you are in a situation that’s exempt from the the 10% penalty,
Note that paying owed income taxes is a legitimate reason to pull money penalty-free from your 401K plan. So underpay your taxes throughout the year, and when you need to write that big check just use your 401K plan.
It's a legal means of cashing out your 401K without paying a penalty.
Disclaimers - I am NOT a lawyer, or CPA, or even a bookkeeper. And you do need to pay attention to things like penalties for under-paying your taxes throughout the year. But most self-employed folks can jigger the numbers every other year to make it so one year you have a very low tax bill, and the next it's really high, meaning you can play the underpayment game without penalty.
Where did you go wrong? when you said, “you cannot..”
If everyone’s gold can be seized your 401k can be seized.
You should be happy to Spread the Wealth.
Black and Blue in Oklahoma
can i get a tax rebate on my losing 401k?
As much as I dislike FDR he never added seats to the Supreme Court. I also always heard he increased the court so researched it. He threatened to if the court did not start siding with him. Guess who did after the court decided a number of cases against him? Lincon
It's not just the sin that's the problem when it comes to God, it's the actions that allow that sin to go on.
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